Feasibility of a New Regional Myocardial Strain Parameter for the Detection of Wall Motion Abnormalities in Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy

Purpose: To evaluate a cardiac MRI feature tracking (FT)-derived parameter that combines right ventricular (RV) longitudinal and radial motions in detecting arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC).

Materials and methods: Patients with ARVC (n = 47; median age, 46 [IQR, 30-52] years; 31 men) were compared with controls (n = 39; median age, 46 [IQR, 33-53] years; 23 men) and separated into two groups based on fulfillment of major structural 2020 International criteria. Cine data from 1.5-T cardiac MRI examinations were analyzed using FT, resulting in conventional strain parameters and a novel composite index named the longitudinal-to-radial strain loop (LRSL). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to assess diagnostic performance of RV parameters.

Results: Volumetric parameters differed significantly between patients in the major structural criteria group and controls but not between patients in the no major structural criteria group and controls. Patients in the major structural criteria group had significantly lower magnitudes of all FT parameters than controls, including RV basal longitudinal strain, radial motion fraction, circumferential strain, and LRSL (-15.6% ± 6.4 vs -26.7% ± 13.9; -9.6% ± 4.89 vs -13.8% ± 4.7; -6.9% ± 4.6 vs -10.1% ± 3.8; and 217.0 ± 128.9 versus 618.6 ± 356.3, respectively). Only LRSL differed between patients in the no major structural criteria group and controls (359.5 ± 195.8 vs 618.6 ± 356.3; P < .0001). Parameters with the highest area under the ROC curve values for discriminating patients in the no major structural criteria group from controls were LRSL, RV ejection fraction, and RV basal longitudinal strain (0.75, 0.70, and 0.61, respectively).

Conclusion: A new parameter combining RV longitudinal and radial motions showed good diagnostic performance in ARVC, even in patients without major structural abnormalities.Keywords: Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Dysplasia, Strain, Wall Motion Abnormalities, Right Ventricle, MRI, Inherited Cardiomyopathy Supplemental material is available for this article. © RSNA, 2023.